


Shadowboxing

by iknowhowmystoryends (gorgeouschaos)



Series: If Supernatural was on HBO [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (second chapter), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse (Supernatural), Fix-It of Sorts, If Supernatural (TV) Were on HBO, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, POV Minor Character, Second chapter is like the opposite of a fix it, victor henriksen deserved better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:49:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27880294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/iknowhowmystoryends
Summary: Here’s the thing about the Winchesters-- if you survive them, you’re never, ever the same.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Victor Henriksen/Dean Winchester
Series: If Supernatural was on HBO [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040013
Comments: 32
Kudos: 116





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Again, thank you so much to cenotaphy for allowing me to use their concepts/play in their sandbox. They're incredibly generous and a fantastic writer.  
> Warnings for implied/referenced sexual assault, sexual content which I don't think warrants an explicit rating, and canon typical levels of substance abuse.  
> As always, thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I love hearing from y'all.

Here’s the thing about the Winchesters-- in some strange, twisted way, they’re all he has.

Cold coffee at two am, pouring through security cam footage he’s already memorized. Always being one step behind. Waking up from dreams about his ex-wife and shadowboxing in his apartment because he doesn’t trust himself with a punching bag, right hooks into left round kicks aimed at a target he’ll never be allowed to touch. 

That’s Victor’s life. 

Then Monument happens. 

Here’s the thing about the Winchesters-- if you survive them, you’re never, ever the same.

Victor survives. 

Most of the time, he can convince himself of that fact.

He drops six salt rounds into the demon that was about to escape the exorcism, convinces his bosses the Winchesters are dead, and quits his job. 

Nancy comes back to his apartment. He insists she take his bed; he takes the couch. It’s familiar, after all those years with his wife.

He wakes up shaking from a dream where he claws Nancy’s eyes out and dials a number he had never meant to call. 

It doesn’t even take a full ring for Dean to pick up, despite the time of night. “Yeah?”

“Send me a picture of that anti-possession tattoo.”

Dean doesn’t ask. “Sure.”

Victor gets a photo of Dean’s chest instead of a sketch. He swallows hard and saves it to his phone.

Nancy gets inked simultaneously with Victor. She looks awful and strung-out in the morning light, but her eyes are fierce. Victor doesn’t ask if she’s sure. 

“You sure you want to do this?” Dean asks over the phone a few weeks later. 

“You know the answer to that.”

Dean sighs, the sound crackling. “Yeah. Talk to Bobby Singer. His number’s…”

Singer takes a shine to Nancy and eyes Victor hard. They get the exorcisms and get out of South Dakota.

Nancy and Victor meet the Winchesters again in Texas, both pairs of them investigating reports of strange crimes and sulfur. 

“Sure you can handle this, Henriksen?” Dean confirms, loading a shotgun.

Victor resists the urge to trace the sigils on his chest, his forearms, his calves. “You’d be surprised by what I can handle, Winchester,” he drawls. Dean tilts his head, lips curling into a smirk, heat curling in his eyes.

Sam coughs loudly.

They meet up for coffee before they go, Victor and Nancy figuring it’s never a bad idea to pick the Winchesters’ brains. 

Dean asks how Victor takes it, the innuendo clear. 

“Splash of half and half, no sugar,” Victor says. “And I’m not the one who’ll be taking it.”

This time, it’s Nancy who coughs. 

Dean drops off the map months later. Rumours about his brother pick up, and they’re not good. Victor wonders but doesn’t ask.

If he dials a certain number the anniversary of Monument, nobody picks up, so it doesn’t matter. 

Victor and Nancy run into Sam and Dean in Santa Fe. They exorcise three demons and go to a bar where Sam won’t let his brother order. Dean’s pressed against Victor’s side, the hard lines of him warm through Victor’s suit jacket.

“Wanna get out of here?” Victor murmurs in Dean’s ear when Sam’s in the bathroom and Nancy’s at the jukebox.

Dean’s eyes flare.

Dean pins Victor to the wall and mouths down his neck. Dean strips with clinical efficiency. Dean sucks bruises onto three of Victor’s anti-possession tattoos. Dean looks like he collects tattoos the way Victor collects obsessions. Dean says _no_ when Victor tries to flip him onto his back.

Victor lets go immediately.

“Sorry,” he says, inadequately. Dean snorts. 

There’s a pause where Victor tries to think past the way Dean feels on top of him and remember where his pants went.

“I need to be able to see you,” Dean says at last. “And I can’t-- I need to be on top.” He won’t meet Victor’s eyes, but there’s something painfully vulnerable in his voice and a flush working its way down his chest.

Victor, uncomfortable, almost asks, _getting sentimental, Winchester?_

He remembers the way his ex-wife had said _there’s some things that I-- I don’t like. I can’t do. Don’t ask about them_. Remembers how he couldn’t hug her from behind.

Victor keeps his mouth shut and nods. Not like it’s a hardship to keep looking at Dean.

Something that was drawing tight in Dean’s shoulders relaxes and he leans down to kiss Victor again. It’s fast, and hot, and it feels like Dean’s chasing something Victor just might be able to give him. 

Chasing Victor can do. Keeping things he’s not so good at. 

“Stop thinking,” Dean mutters, and he slides down Victor’s body. “Don’t pull my hair.”

Victor grabs onto his headboard and lets himself stop thinking. 

They fuck slow, Dean riding Victor with his head thrown back and his lips parted, looking like everything Victor should know better than to want. 

Afterwards, Dean pulls on his jeans one-handed and walks out onto the balcony. Victor pauses long enough to find his suit pants and a pack of cigarettes and follows him. 

Dean’s got a lighter. Course he does. 

They pass a cigarette back and forth. Dean takes a long inhale then says, exhaling smoke, “I remember it, you know. Hell.”

Victor takes the cigarette when it’s offered. He doesn’t know what to say, so he reaches out and touches Dean’s bare shoulder once, gently, right above the handprint burned there. 

Dean’s gone in the morning. There’s a cup of coffee with _you have my number_ scrawled on it. 

Victor takes a sip. Splash of half and half, no sugar. 

As they head towards San Jose, Nancy asks, “You gonna see him again?”

Victor thinks about how Dean’s hands had been shaking before he kissed him, how Dean had tasted like something blue and cold and desperate, how he’d looked coming all over Victor’s hand. Thinks about handprints and brands and the difference between the two.

“Nah,” he says. “Not like that.”

She nods and doesn’t push. 

The Winchesters go on and off grid for years. Victor learns to find the places where hunters meet and listens, telling himself he’s not doing it for Dean. 

_Heard they let the Devil out._

_Heard they put the Devil back in._

_Heard they’re running with an angel now. Scary son of a bitch. Heard he and Dean are…_

_Heard they’re out of the life._

_Heard they’re back in._

_Heard they got Singer killed._

_Heard something about Purgatory._

_Heard something about--_

_Heard Dean--_

_Heard Sam--_

_Heard--_

Victor usually gets drunk those nights. Never drunk enough to forget the salt lines, though. 

He hears about himself, too. 

_Heard he’s the one you call when you_ can’t fucking find _the monster._

_Heard he’s the one who can track it across state lines when you’ve got nothing to go on._

_Heard he’s the guy with the sharp grin and steel-trap gaze and a brain faster than Ash’s computers used to be._

_Heard he’s never lost his prey._

_Heard he’s got a hell of a right hook._

_Heard he caught the_ Winchesters _once._

_Heard--_

Sometimes he gets calls. He suspects Bobby Singer is the one who gave out his number, but that Garth kid might be part of it too. 

His phone rings at two am. Victor answers with a grunt. 

“Henriksen?” a female voice asks. 

“Yeah.”

“They say you can find anyone,” she says, and Victor starts laughing, can’t help it. Nancy steals the phone from him and starts taking notes. 

Shadowboxing. That’s all he does. That’s all he knows how to do. 

Sometimes, it’s enough.


	2. Endverse Henriksen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This is what happens when you drive by Monument, Colorado after waking up at 3:30am. Not sure how well it turned out, but I'm sleep deprived and just wanted to post.  
> Thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I love hearing from y'all.

Victor’s been at Camp Chitaqua for a month and seventeen days when Dean asks him,“You wanna fuck?”

Victor nearly chokes. “Aren’t you with Cas?” It’s pretty obvious, given the way they share a cabin with one bed. Given the way they look at each other. 

“He’s fucking Chris right now.” Dean shrugs, all lithe grace and utter indifference. “He’s gonna have to be cool with it.”

Victor could say a lot of things here. Like _this can’t be healthy_ or _I ain’t your revenge fuck, Winchester_ or _you ain’t ever gonna be mine, so what’s the point_?

Since he has no sense of self-preservation, Victor says, “Yeah, all right.”

Dean rolls out of Victor’s bed and pulls his clothes on while Victor’s still catching his breath. Victor would be insulted, but the way Dean said his name when he came is consolation enough. 

There’s no cigarettes, this time, no silences. There’s just Dean pausing in the doorway and saying with a slight smirk, “Let me know when you want another round.”

For a moment, there’s something of the old Dean in this new Dean’s eyes. Some hint of the insouciance, the devil-may-care, the life. Something left of the Dean who’d still had Sam, who’d never thought he’d strap anyone to the rack again.

Then it’s gone again. Dean closes the door behind him. 

Victor lets his head fall back against his pillow and curses himself. 

Cas sits down next to Victor at breakfast the next morning. Victor waits for the fist, but all Cas says is, “You have fun?”

Victor eyes him. “You pissed?”

Cas smiles. It’s not a friendly expression. “Just remember whose bed he’ll end up crawling back to and we’ll be fine.”

Victor nods and goes back to his food. It’s not like he could forget, when Dean’s got Cas’ claim branded into him in every way that matters. 

Dean stays long enough to share a cigarette the fourth time he sleeps with Victor. Victor isn’t stupid enough to think it means anything, but the next morning, Cas sits down at his table again.

“Dean wants you to watch us,” Cas says. 

Victor raises an eyebrow. 

“Together,” the former angel clarifies.

 _This is a terrible plan,_ Victor reminds himself. He finds himself asking, “And you? What do you want?”

Cas rolls his eyes. “I want what Dean wants.” His tone says _isn’t it obvious_?

Once more, Victor thinks, _this can’t be healthy_. He’s not sure if he’s thinking it at Cas or at himself.

Once more, he says, “Yeah, all right.”

Cas’ right hand fits perfectly over the handprint on Dean’s left shoulder; Cas’ eyes lock onto Victor’s as Dean comes. 

_Mine_ , that look says, and Victor hears the message loud and clear. 

If that makes something in Victor's chest ache, if it makes him want to rewind to a balcony six years ago-- 

Well. 

The bullet in his shoulder still hurts, sometimes, but it won’t be the thing to kill him. Neither will this.

(Nah. Dean Winchester will kill him just fine, sure, but not like this.)

When past Dean shows up, Victor forces himself to keep his distance. Victor watches, though, watches past Dean’s disgust at what he becomes, at what he lets Cas become. 

“At least you haven’t changed,” Dean tells Victor, a throwaway comment in the moments before Victor’s death.

Victor starts laughing, can’t help it. 

His shoulder’s aching as a Croat rips his throat out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would anyone be interested in an author's commentary on this fic? Let me know if so.  
> EDIT: https://iknowhowmystoryends.wordpress.com/2020/12/28/shadowboxing-authors-commentary/


End file.
